Trollheart

There are of course albums I love, and this thread will feature them. The end.
Kick off with this one.


Now, no-one would be surprised to hear that Carole King was still making albums. In a career spanning over forty years, she's been making music for almost as long as I've been alive and has had more number one singles and charting albums than you can shake a decent-sized stick at (why would anyone want to do such a thing? But I digress...), in addition to writing hits for huge stars like James Taylor, Celine Dion and the Monkees, in particular with her husband and writing partner Gerry Goffin. She's a music legend, even if many people only know her by the songs she's written for other people, and music is obviously in her blood, so reaching the tender age of forty-seven (at the time of the release of the album I'm going to look at here: she's eighty this year!) was surely going to be no barrier to her continuing her career.

What did blow me away though was how she could still turn out a classic album at that age, this being her eleventh album at the time, and usually at this point in their career artists like her tend to get by on past glories, with greatest hits compilations, tributes, live albums and collections keeping the money steadily streaming towards their door. But the album she put out in 1989, after six years inaction on the music scene, was quite frankly phenomenal.




City Streets - Carole King - 1989 (Capitol)

It's an album with no bad tracks, and some really excellent ones. Not surprisingly, it's all self-penned, mostly with other writers and twice with Goffin, but she has an input into every track. She also produces the album, in addition to playing guitar, piano and synth and of course singing. As you might expect she ropes in some guest stars, though the album is not overpopulated with star names, as it could have been. One of those stars guests on the title track, someone you may have had a passing acquaintance with, guy by the name of Clapton? I predict big things for this talented guitarist...! The opener and title track is a pop/rock bouncer, with great keyboard lines and as already mentioned, guitar courtesy of God Himself, a great solo from him at the end of the song. Also some nice sax, and of course Carole's singing hardly need be praised anymore than it has been down the years.

It's a strong opener, and in a way there's a sense of trepidation, as you wonder has King injected everything into that one track, leaving filler in its wake? Nothing could be further from the truth though thankfully, as the cool funk of “Sweet Life” shows in spades, with nice jangly guitar, some cool organ and a very upbeat and positive message: ”You can't keep living inside your head/ In a prison cell all your own/ Just let yourself go/ Get your body out of bed/ You don't have to do it all alone.” This, if no other track, personifies Carole's optimistic attitude and view on life. Easy to have, I hear you say, if you have her millions, but there's something infectious about her optimism, and it certainly comes through in this song.

Things slow down then with a half-ballad, “Down to the Darkness”, which despite its ominous title is nevertheless a song of hope, as Carole sings ”I know you're gonna take me/ Down to the darkness/ Oh, but I want you to.” Some really nice percussion here from Omar Hakim, steady piano from Carole herself, the lady getting a little raunchy on the vocals, a deep organ keeping the melody behind her. “Lovelight” is a bright and breezy little uptempo pop tune then, with an almost Peter Gabriel feel about it, circa So, nice backing vocals on a wistful plea for the rekindling of love. Great little splash of rock guitar, this time from Mark Bosch, and the song gives way to the first real ballad, a delicate piano acoustic which recalls the best of Fleetwood Mac's “Songbird”. A simple, plain song with a really heartfelt message, “I Can't Stop Thinking About You” has some nice country-style piano as Carole asks ”Why did you show me all your colours/ When you knew that I was blind?” It's lyrics like that, which get right to the point in a subtle and yet intense way, that have helped make her the success she has been for four decades now.

This song is a duet with Paul Hipp, who also plays guitar on the track, and with whom King had a collaboration in an off-Broadway show she acted in with him. Some really soulful trombone from Nick Lane and sultry sax from the great Michael Becker really add something to this song, and it's a beautiful, perfect little ballad, crafted by a master songsmith. It's followed by “Legacy”, a powerful rocker that starts off slowly on a piano line that reminds me of Laura Branigan's “The Lucky One”, but soon ramps up into a fast uptempo bopper, something close to the opener, with some great solid organ, powerful drumming from the E Street Band's Max Weinberg. It's one of two tracks on the album she co-wrote with Rudy Guess, who also helped her produce the album, the other being “Sweet Life”.

This is an album with no “tipping point”, and you would think that after a great stormer like “Legacy” this is where the quality might begin to dip, but not a bit of it. Clapton reprises his role on “Ain't That the Way”, the last of four tracks on the album penned solo by Carole. It's a slow, bluesy ballad with heavy organ and as mentioned Clapton's signature guitar sound, rock fusing with blues fusing with slow gospel, another simple song about human relationships, which is where Carole King shines, and always has done. Things jump back up a gear then for “Midnight Flyer”, on which Carole renews her songwriting partnership with ex-husband Gerry Goffin, and you can just hear the years fall away as the song bops along, not a care in the world. A truly exceptional turn by the legendary Branford Marsalis adds layers of class to what is already a great song, with some right-on harmonica courtesy of another great, Jimmy “Z” Zavala, and though that sounds like banjo there in the break near the end, I guess it's just someone being very creative on the guitar, as no banjo player is credited.

Most artists - young or old - would surely have a problem maintaining this level of quality on an album, but Carole has no such problems, as she effortlessly launches into “Homeless Heart” with a huge AOR keyboard hook, and backing vocals by her and Gerry Goffin's daughter, Sherry. A mid-paced half-ballad, it evokes uneasy images of wandering through a city at night with a lot on your mind, with a great piano line and some really nice guitar, and the kind of piano solo to fade the song out that would have made it a satisfactory closer, but it's not the last track.

The album closes on another simple piano ballad, in fact a song written by Carole originally for Air Supply. The tender, supportive lyric of “Someone Who Believes in You”, the other song on which she collaborates with Gerry Goffin, evokes the very best of Carole King, the sort of songs that could, and did, last down the years, and pass into musical history. Almost a sort of "You've Got a Friend" for the late 1980s, this song deserves the same distinction as that classic, however it seems the record-buying public did not agree, and the album did so badly that it is now out of print. Truly a crime, however my vinyl copy is safely under lock and key.

Hard to believe that after nearly twenty years of recording and writing hit songs, that Carole King could still come up with a gem like this, but City Streets certainly proved that she was, and is, a force to be reckoned with. I was, to quote a phrase, gobsmacked, having expected nothing that great and been totally overwhelmed by the quality on this album. Just proves, some things only improve with age.

TRACK LISTING

1. City Streets
2. Sweet Life
3. Down to the Darkness
4. Lovelight
5. I Can't Stop Thinking About You
6. Legacy
7. Ain't that the Way
8. Midnight Flyer
9. Homeless Heart
10. Someone Who Believes in You

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